The American - Poster Giveaway
Ends Sep 5, 2010
Enter today for your chance to win this full-sized, double-sided theatrical poster from the upcoming Focus Features Film.
Coraline stopped and listened. She knew she was doing something
wrong, and she was trying to listen for her mother coming back, but she heard
nothing. Then Coraline put her hand on the doorknob and turned it; and, finally,
she opened the door.
It opened on to a dark hallway. The bricks had gone as if they'd never been
there. There was a cold, musty smell coming through the open doorway: it smelled
like something very old and very slow.
Coraline went through the door.
Thus the heroine of Neil Gaiman's newest novel finds herself transported from the
world that is real to the world that is extra-real. Like Lucy and Edmund entering
C.S. Lewis's Narnia through the wardrobe, like Lewis Carroll's Alice crawling
through the parlour looking-glass, Coraline opens a door that should rightfully go
no place at all and discovers a path to...
...elsewhere.
The world that Coraline discovers is much like her own. The rooms look almost the
same. The people look almost the same. Even her mother is almost the same.
Only her skin was white as paper.
Only she was taller and thinner.
Only her fingers were too long, and they never stopped moving, and her dark red
fingernails were curved and sharp.
"Coraline?" the woman said. "Is that you?"
And then she turned around. Her eyes were big black buttons.
The world is a more exciting one than the dull one she has left behind. Oh, the
real world had its curiosities to be sure, like the two dowager actresses living
downstairs, or the crazy old man in the attic training mice to play musical
instruments. But in this copy of her world, the food is sweeter, the toys in her
room are more interesting, and there's a strangeness and charm that is very
seductive to a young girl craving adventures.
But there's a dark and sinister force at work conspiring to keep Coraline in this
twilight world forever. Her real parents have disappeared, and the voices of other
children speak to her from inside a darkened closet. And so Coraline proposes a
challenge to the Other Mother: If Coraline can rescue the children and find where
the Other Mother has hidden her parents, the Other Mother will allow Coraline to
return home.
It's a daunting task, especially with the interference of the enigmatic rats.
Fortunately, Coraline is assisted by a talking black cat that gives her hints (and
other, more direct, aid) along the way. And if Coraline wins the game, can she even
be sure that the Other Mother will honor their deal?
Gaiman's novel is richer and darker than what most parents might expect to find in a
children's novel. However, Gaiman recognizes that children are capable of handling
more than adults give them credit for, and so he does not insult them by presenting
his tale in a candy-coated 'Dick and Jane' format. With that in mind, while there
are definite images of Lewis Carroll and C.S. Lewis in the plot, the flavor
of Coraline leans more toward Roald Dahl (James and the Giant Peach,
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). The illustrations from long-time Gaiman
collaborator Dave McKean (Sandman, Mister Punch, both Gaiman works)
reinforce the macabre sense of wonder and foreboding that oozes through the pages; a
texture of grotesqueness that children--with their resiliency and
inquisitiveness--will love to get all over themselves.
